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Rock and roll legend Little Richard († 87) is dead. This was confirmed by his son Danny Penniman in “Rolling Stone”. The cause of death is not clear.
Former Little Glenn bassist Charles Glenn told the American portal “TMZ”: “Richard had been ill for two months. He died at his home in Tennessee. His brother, sister and son were with him. Charles Glenn wanted to visit him in March. past, but the corona virus had foiled his plans.
Lived retired
Little Richard invented rock and roll and laid the foundations for funk and soul. More recently, however, the musician was in poor health and lived in seclusion in the American state of Tennessee. The church played the leading role in his life, as he said in an interview. God was good to me. I go to church every Saturday, every Saturday, I never miss that. And on Fridays I open the Sabbath.
Richard Wayne Penniman was born in 1932 in extremely poor conditions to an African-American family in the southern state of Georgia, right in the midst of brutal black and white separation.
Raised in poor condition
“I come from the slums, you will never forget it,” said the musician, who was very young when he was a child and was therefore called “Little Richard”. His father was a smuggler and was killed when Little Richard, the third child among twelve brothers, was 19 years old. “Everything in me fell apart then.” But the experience also gave him strength, “and the conviction and persistence of knowing that one day he would succeed.”
Back then, blacks in Georgia only lived in the excruciatingly noisy areas right next to the train tracks, as the award-winning artist recalled. “The trains shook their houses at night. When I was a kid, I heard that and thought, ‘At some point I will make a song that sounds exactly the same.’ ”
Little Richard struggles with odd jobs, starts with gospel, sings from performance to performance, and finally lands his first record deal. In addition to “Tutti Frutti”, he released songs like “Good Golly, Miss Molly” and “Lucille” in the following years, which were covered and developed by stars like Elvis Presley (42) – rock’n’roll was born.
Wild party life
Little Richard has been swimming on the wave of success for almost three years, touring the United States and openly celebrating wild bisexual parties with men, women, and alcohol. His concerts, in which the musician, often celebrated as the “god of rock’n’roll,” with a thin mustache, high hair, shiny makeup, false eyelashes, and wild costumes, brought together blacks and whites in the midst of the racial segregation, to radical horror. Conservative politicians and associations.
But suddenly it’s over. On a concert tour to Australia in 1957, Little Richard spontaneously decided to give up music and become a priest. Since then, the strident artist has lived between two worlds: church and music.
Several return exchanges
He begins attempts to return again and again, fights against the diminishing interest in rock and roll, helps young Jimi Hendrix (27) to start his career, travels Europe with the then unknown Rolling Stones, tries his luck as an actor and publishes the cornerstone Funk and soul albums. But he always withdraws to his religious world and to the gospel.
Elvis Presley stars via Otis Redding (26), Jerry Lee Lewis (84), Tina Turner (80), Prince (57), Mick Jagger (76), Rod Stewart (75), David Bowie (69), Elton John (73), Paul McCartney (77), Bob Dylan (78), and Freddie Mercury (45) to Bruno Mars (34) cite Little Richard as their musical idol. But after laying the foundation stone for rock and roll, others came to light. None of Little Richard’s songs could follow the worldwide success of “Tutti Frutti”, but perhaps it wasn’t necessary. “I always thought,” Bob Dylan once wrote, “that ‘Wop bop a loo lop a lop bam boo’ said it all.” (SDA / bnr)
